Qualla: Robson Bight https://qualla.com/robson-bight en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/c/0/v/z/robson-bight-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Robson Bight https://qualla.com/robson-bight Robson Bight: Introduction https://qualla.com/robson-bight/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Qyd assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. Somewhere along the rocky northeast coast of Vancouver Island, killer whales do something scientists still cannot fully explain. They swim into the shallows of a small bight off Johnstone Strait, deflate their lungs to reduce buoyancy, and drag their massive bodies across beds of smooth pebbles. They roll, they twist, they glide belly-down over the stones with what can only be described as pleasure. No other killer whale population on Earth does this. The behavior is passed from mother to calf, generation after generation, a cultural tradition as distinctive as language or song. In 1982, the waters and shoreline of Robson Bight became the first ecological reserve on the planet created specifically to protect orcas -- and the strange, irreplaceable beaches they cannot seem to live without.

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]]> Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/0/v/z/robson-bight-wp/c0vz-robson-bight-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Robson Bight: The Bigg Idea https://qualla.com/robson-bight/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Qyd assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. The reserve bears the name of Michael Bigg in parentheses, a quiet tribute to a man who changed everything scientists thought they knew about killer whales. Before Bigg, the prevailing estimate put British Columbia's orca population in the thousands. In 1971, Bigg mailed 15,000 q...

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]]> Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/0/v/z/robson-bight-wp/c0vz-robson-bight-the-bigg-idea.mp3 0:06 2 full Robson Bight: Stones and Silence https://qualla.com/robson-bight/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Qyd assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. The rubbing beaches themselves are modest -- sloping shelves of rounded pebbles that extend from the forest edge into the cold, green water of Johnstone Strait. What makes them irreplaceable is not their geology but their meaning. Northern resident orcas use these beaches as soci...

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]]> Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/0/v/z/robson-bight-wp/c0vz-robson-bight-stones-and-silence.mp3 0:06 3 full Robson Bight: A Spill in the Sanctuary https://qualla.com/robson-bight/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Qyd assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. On August 20, 2007, a barge transiting Johnstone Strait lost eleven pieces of heavy equipment -- vehicles, forestry machinery, a fuel tanker -- directly into the waters of the ecological reserve. The tanker truck, carrying 10,000 litres of diesel fuel, sank 350 meters to the bott...

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]]> Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/0/v/z/robson-bight-wp/c0vz-robson-bight-a-spill-in-the-sanctuary.mp3 0:06 4 full Robson Bight: The Namesake's Shadow https://qualla.com/robson-bight/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Qyd assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. Lieutenant Commander Charles Rufus Robson of HMS Forward never saw a killer whale rub against a beach. He likely never gave the bight much thought at all. A Royal Navy officer surveying the labyrinthine coast of British Columbia in the late 1850s, Robson lent his name to this sma...

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]]> Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/0/v/z/robson-bight-wp/c0vz-robson-bight-the-namesakes-shadow.mp3 0:06 5 full